Mario met Bobo and Marlena on an evening meeting of expats, although Marlena was local and had even been born in our city. He had been talking to Marlena for one hour, and by then he knew she worked as a well paid manager, which she hated, and she had a deep passion for arts, which she had tried and failed. And as stupidly ironic as life can often be, she was at the same time drop-dead gorgeous, charming, good listener, insecure, anxious and full of complexes.
Bobo appeared later, out of nowhere, and hastily came to sit down next to them, with a confident, even arrogant, even aggressive expression and a confident, even arrogant, even aggressive eyes. He introduced himself as Bobo, although that was not his name, and couldn’t be his name, and definitely seemed to try to hide his actual name. But he made Mario and Marlena quickly forget about it by starting a never ending monologue about himself.
Bobo started by proudly mentioning he was a painter, a singer, an explorer of the mind, an explorer of the soul, and yes, he had his very own, very profitable company. To Mario it was impressive that during recession times somebody could have a successful business while fooling around so much, and to Marlena it was impressive that somebody could be so multi talented, sensitive, and still stay faithful to his artistic vocation amidst running a business.
Bobo got his phone out of his pocket, a phone with a huge screen, and it started to show a carrousel of his paintings. There was this one, with a freaked out, screaming woman next to a pyramid, which amazed and frightened Marlena, which was explained by Bobo as a symbol of the abuse of the titanic emotional coldness of men punishing the fragile sensitivity of women, and which made Mario smile as it was coincidentally similar to Edvard Munch’s work.
Bobo then started singing something, as if feeling it spontaneously in the heat of the cold evening, and then he said his voice was exhausted and hence couldn’t do it properly, but he got his phone out of his pocket again, a phone with a powerful sound, and he played a song he had both written and sang, a melancholic, sad song about we all being nothing, with our best experiences being long, the best of our lives way past us, as if we had reached the beginning of a cold, gray autumn, which made Marlena almost tenderly cry, while confessing that’s exactly how she felt these days, and which made Mario remember that well known song of The Cure, both in its lyrics and in the musical tone, although Bobo’s voice seemed in comparison shallow and sadly exaggerated.
Bobo suddenly deeply sighed, calming himself shortly after, and said that he was humbled and didn’t want to think of himself as an artist, or a polymath, a modern Da Vinci, a Bertrand Russell, or a Rabindranath Tagore or a Bob Dylan, no. No, he was talented not because of his own wish, and yes, he had so much talent, yes, to share with the world, but it was given to him, by God (Marlena showed a confused face, being an atheist), no, he meant, he wasn’t religious, no, it was a way of saying it. Yes, he had not yet created music as precious as that one of Lyle Mays or Cohen and that kept him humble, but it was important to be kind to the world (Marlena recovered his face full of marvel and excitement and hope).
Bobo then started to ask Marlena about her taste. Do you like music? Yes, she loved classical music, but she also adored rock from the sixties and seventies. Amazing, that’s what I love the most too, do you know the Beatles? And Bobo started mentioning his own interpretation of Get Back and Yellow Submarine as having deep, complex, never understood, secret meaning, which impressed Marlena. “Yes, Marlena, he said, I can see a sweet spark in your yes, my friend (can you I consider you my friend?), you must not give up, because I see you are an artist, I can see it in you, I was the same as you, weak and doubted myself and now I’m humbly successful. Yes, you must, you really must visit me in Vienna, where I live and have my company and its offices, yes, I have an extra room, and I can show you my ongoing works”.
Bobo stood up with a almost imperceptible smirk on his tanned face, and went to the bar. Mario followed him as his beer was gone. There he observed him, in more detail, when he asked a non alcoholic drink. Yes, he seemed familiar. From where? Those deep, dark eyes, framed by those thick eyebrows, and the long horse face and the long hair. Yes, yes, he seemed familiar, but from where? Then Bobo couldn’t find his card to pay his drink and turned to Mario: hey mate, can you get me this one? I will give you my information, I will send you the money, I must, definitely must have forgotten my card in my room at the Hilton, definitely.
Mario went to the toilet shortly after, leaving Marlena to be wondered by Bobo’s seemingly fascinating, intricate, complex works and sweet words. It was unusual for him that such a business man, a successful business owner, wouldn’t bring multiple cards or some emergency cash. And it struck him: yes, he wasn’t sure, but he looked dangerously similar to the still husband of a girl he had a date later with in Viena, yes, in a tango festival.
Once he was out of the toilet, he escaped to the cold autumn evening to have a cigarette and got his own phone out. He was reviewing Hilke’s social profile, that girl he had a date with, to find the guy. Yes, it was definitely that guy, albeit he had short hair before. Yes, he remembered her trying to exhaust all the criticism she had against him. Yes, the Tango festival they went together to was a rather miserable one, and according to her, it should have, it must have been sponsored with naive’s investors or some European Union culture easy money. She mentioned he also had a miserable career as an artist, full of small time prizes and fake customers, and an abnormal tendency to exaggeratedly lie.
Mario went back to sit with Bobo and Marlena, to listen more about his paintings, his singing and his other future endeavors in both arts and businesses. Mario offered to invest in his business, having some extra cash on the side, and asked a few questions, which seemed to distract Bobo, but made Mario realized he should definitely be a rather amateur entrepreneur and artist. He knew that because he had a very small business of his own and had published teenager books under a pseudonym.
Mario was tempted to tell Marlena about what he though, but he told himself that wasn’t his business, while smoking again a cigarette. At least he must have something that makes women go crazy after him, he said to himself.
One year after he saw on social media the news of a tragedy involving Marlena and Bobo, and he wondered whether he should have said something. “Maybe I should have mentioned he was still married”, he said to himself, with involuntary, painful remorse.
Coffee and Movies 